I went out with my work colleagues last week – we went to a Harvester. Now I’m not a fan of mass produced, chain restaurants, I find the food predictable and just a bit boring.

However I was pleasantly surprised to find the menu full of calorie information. You can could easily see how you could build up the count to way over your recommended daily allowance if you weren’t careful! The 430 calories for ‘seasoned fries’ were downright scary!

It does though bring it home just how much you can eat when you’re out, without knowing it, all the extras can take you way above what you probably think you’re consuming. Add in a coke or a beer and you’re in big trouble!

Whilst all this is great as a treat, if you do this a couple of times a week, without any exercise or being careful about what else you eat then you are going to put on weight.
I try to have an idea of nutrition, so when I’m eating out I can make informed choices. I do though get annoyed at portions that are way too big. When you’re brought up that it’s good manners to clear your plate or ‘eat as much as you want’ means pile it high, then your head will rule your stomach and you will eat your way through far more than you actually need.

I took the option in the Harvester to go for the boiled potatoes, however EIGHT of them was a bit overkill and for that amount I would have disputed the calories stated! And beware the salad bar, just because it’s on the salad bar, doesn’t mean it’s healthy, by the time you’ve piled it high, added dressings and some croutons!

Beware of this, you’ll need to know when you’re full, if you’re not sure, when you’re half way through a plate, stop, put down your cutlery and let your stomach work out what’s going on, I can guarantee that you will start to feel full. If you are STOP eating. Put your napkin over your food or make it clear to the waitress that you’re done.

And if the waitress says ‘was there something wrong with it?’ because you’ve left some, tell her the portions were just too much. I always wonder why women are always expected to consume the same portion sizes as men?? And the amount of wasted food is sad and something I’d also like considered.

I know it’s not easy but willpower is very important, it doesn’t mean you can’t have the nice things, you can, just not tons of it! Over time it becomes easier to know what your limit is.

When it comes to a pudding, don’t feel its wrong to order one with a friend and have two spoons. It’s about a little of something fabulous not so much that you end up with that feeling of being ‘stuffed’.

By following these simple things, you can still eat out while you’re aiming to lose weight or determined to keep it off.

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I’ve picked up on my stats report that Ads for diet supplements appear to have featured on my site, I do not support or have any control over these I’m afraid.

I don’t advocate using ‘wonder’ supplements that promise quick weight loss. The only thing I support is eating less, eating better and moving more. There are no short cuts, to be able to sustain long term weight loss you stand a much better chance by losing weight slowly and sensibly.

Don’t waste your money, effort or time.

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This morning I woke up a bit stiff after yesterday’s work-out but with a real feeling that I wanted to walk. It’s a wet, sleety, cold day but somehow the thought of an hour on the treadmill wasn’t doing it for me so I wrapped up, put on a hat and set off.

An hour later I was back, cold, wet but invigorated. As I took off my track bottoms I had a feeling, a very old feeling, my legs were red, cold and damp and I was that fourteen year old girl again.

The fourteen year old me wasn’t confident about being active, I was good at school, one of the brainy ones, but what was more important was whether you were good at sport and that meant netball or hockey. I wasn’t, I wasn’t a team game player, I’d loved gymnastics and dance but once you got to the 4th year all that mattered to the PE staff was the team games, other things just fell off the timetable. I remember that feeling in my legs coming from being outside in winter, the rain coming down, we weren’t allowed to wear tracksuit bottoms so we were in our gym skirts or shorts, legs raw from the wind, rain and cold.

We were self conscious, our bodies were doing strange things to us, so what did school do, yep made us take our clothes off, shower in communal spaces, made us feel inferior because we weren’t as developed as our classmates or more developed, made us worry, fret about that more than the actual PE lesson. And for me I was made to feel that because I wasn’t good at team games that I wasn’t as valued as the other girls. Instant self esteem failure.

Today that makes me sad, how many other girls are out there who feel the same, it may not be about being good, but about how they feel about themselves? I hope that things may be better thirty years on, but somehow I think teenage girls may now be in an even worse situation. Today there’s social media, more focus on celebrity (god forbid that ambition is now about being a WAG or Katie Price) and we have a generation of obese women so my fear is that we haven’t improved things at all.

When I get back from a walk, swim or a workout now, I feel immensely proud and good about myself, it hasn’t been about how ‘good’ I am but how it makes me feel and hopefully when I tell people about what this 40 something can now do. how they might just give it a go too.

I would like to see PE in schools approached differently, that it is about taking part, just being active, that there is more choice so kids are marginalised. I’d like to see PE staff understanding that self esteem is so important, that it is the taking part that is important, if you just want to walk that’s great, teach them about obesity, the risks, the reality of what it really means, about ambition and self esteem. It’s about teaching kids about lifestyle and what is healthy, if their parents are not active, obese, smokers etc etc, where are they going to learn these things? Their normality has been distorted, I don’t want to sit back and watch a generation destroy itself.

Weirdly that old feeling this morning felt good – It may have taken some time but being active feels pretty darn good. Now to see if we can get others to feel the same.

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This week I stopped straightening my hair, weirdly after a couple of decades of unruly frizz, I now have a head of bouncy glossy curls. I go through spells of subjecting it to electricity but this week I wanted to be me.

Me is a subject that’s taking up some time at the moment, I spent years hiding behind my weight, it allowed me to park my life, hide from who I was and not deal with the issues that had caused it in the first place.

Now more of me has arrived, but there are still insecurities and challenges. I’m positive though that I’m making headway in meeting those challenges.

So I guess my question to you is – are you hiding, are you really being you? What’s stopping you?